Stillness

Grow. Change. Fade.

Before Santa Clara traded fruit for silicon, it was known as the Valley of Heart's Delight. Orchards littered the hillsides, and its fame was supported by the branches of apricot, peach, and nectarine trees. Now the orchards have given way to the energy and frenetic speed of computer innovation, and the fields that were once filled with trees have fallen fallow.

Stillness is an interactive projection allowing visitors to re-visit this part of Silicon Valley's past through the movement and position of their bodies. It asks viewers to take time to still themselves, and become a participant in the past's depiction by transforming into a tree.

The use of Processing, projection, and Kinect sensors frames the installation in the language of hackerspaces and the cutting edge. Rather than a critique of modern life's hectic speed, it asks if we can contextualize our behavior using modern tools, and bring it into dialogue with the historical transformation of our surroundings.